Posted
by
Zonkon Tuesday February 28, 2006 @06:03PM
from the it's-alive dept.

steveha writes "The cover story for this month's Discover magazine tells of a recently discovered gigantic virus, Mimivirus, that has blurred the lines between viruses and bacteria, and spurred speculation that viruses could be the reason life evolved past single-celled organisms." From the article: "This is striking news, especially at a moment when the basic facts of origins and evolution seem to have fallen under a shroud. In the discussions of intelligent design, one hears a yearning for an old-fashioned creation story, in which some singular, inchoate entity stepped in to give rise to complex life-forms--humans in particular. "

Which came first the symbiant or the host? One might say well the host of course. But now consider the virus and the bacteria. we are told the host may have evolved from the virus.

of course bacteria have their own virus like properties. For example, they serialize their objectes and multi-cast them to other bacteria for remote processing. Sometimes data values from that compuation. That is to say, bacteria have plasmids which a small usually circular chunks of data that are docked along side their pri

So the question becomes (which a portion of the scientific community refuses to consider solely because of the implications to their worldview) is: Can design be scientifically detected and, if so, how?

Um, no. Viruses don't consume anything, since they don't have a metabolism. Agent Smith (and all the other agents too), on the other hand, uses human hosts to replicate, and is therefore a virus himself.

"In the discussions of intelligent design, one hears a yearning for an old-fashioned creation story, in which some singular, inchoate entity stepped in to give rise to complex life-forms--humans in particular."
Actually, I just hear a bunch of idiots trying to take a fable from 2 thousand years ago and use it to explain things in place of modern science.

"In the discussions of intelligent design, one hears a yearning for an old-fashioned creation story, in which some singular, inchoate entity stepped in to give rise to complex life-forms--humans in particular. "

In The discussion of evolutionary biology, one hears a yearning for people to leave out the ideas behind itellegent design so that the scientists can get back to doing their work.

Seriously, what's wrong with this poster and slashdot editor for letting this through? Why did that need to be include

Nice of the poster to inject a controvertial personal view in the end of his submission for all of us to flame about.

Hi, I'm steveha. The poster.

For the record, here is the story submission exactly as I submitted it:

The cover story [discover.com] for this month's Discover [discover.com] magazine tells of a recently discovered gigantic virus, Mimivirus, that has blurred the lines between viruses and bacteria, and spurred speculation that viruses could be the reason life evolved past single-celled organisms.

Please note that I didn't put any personal views there.

Please also note that Zonk did not put words in my mouth. He put my summary in double-quotes, and then after the double-quotes he put some additional stuff from the article. He edited my link references but did not edit my words at all.

I suspect we're on the same wavelength here, but I'll say it anyway. Creationism is not a scientific theory, which is part of the problem I, a devout Catholic, have with Intelligent Design.

My bigger problem is the fact that, as a theological concept, ID is empty and vain. It attempts to promote the idea that we are created by God, without any desire to learn more. That defeats the purpose of theology (theo-logos: knowing God). Given that ID fits neither science nor theology (does not directly address how

The following thought experiment will help you to understand the principle of falsibility:

In the not-so-distant future, a team of archaeologists discovers a giant underground complex filled with technology significantly more advanced than any known to modern man. Radiometric isotope analysis seems to indicate the structure is at least a few hundred million years old. Further study of the various discovered technologies reveals an astoundingly complete map of all genom

1) we know life to be several billion years old, a few hundred million is a mere fraction of that.2) a plausible explanation: the complex was merely a laboratory for extraterrestrial scientists who were visiting earth, studying the genomes of life on various planets in the universe.

What is referred to as "the theory of evolution" consists of several parts. First of all, common descent - i.e. that the different species that live on earth (or lived on earth in the past) have common ancestors. They did not appear independently, but instead descended and changed from that common ancestor. The theory does not specify if there was just one common ancestor, or several ancestors (i.e. that life might have originated several times). Currently evidence points at one common ancestor, with no goo

I don't see any reference to aliens when searching their site. Surely probability-wise if not evolution then we were cloned by visiting creatures. After all, we know how to do some space travel, we know how to do some cloning, eventually we'll be capable of it ourselves. Then we'll be God on some poor dumb moon somewhere.That's OK with you though, right? Wouldn't ruffle any feathers at the Discovery Institute?

Be honest, they may not be young-earthers, but the Discovery Institute was created by an old lawyer

And naturally, it's not like it's almost exclusively Conservative Christians [wikipedia.org] who are promoting it, some of whom used to promote Creationism but switched when the courts ruled that it was simply an attempt to get the Bible into classrooms and was unconstitutional.

By what criteria would you like to have it demonstrated? If you mean the large-scale evolution of microbes into mammals, I'm afraid then that there's no lab with enough time or funding to create life from scratch, given that we think it takes about 2 billion years under the most ideal conditions we know of for it to happen. The condition you are requiring for "proof" is ridiculous. I might say also that you have to create the Sun in a lab to demonstrate that f

I remember a college textbook that went out of its way to attack creationism several times. That's just brilliant. Every time a scientist/wannabe scientist takes a jab at religion, it fuels the rabid creationists who view science as being antagonistic.

Who cares what creationists think?...it's not really a problem - just something smart people find funny about the way stupid people think.

There's a good way to convince others you're right - by hurling insults at anyone who doesn't think like you do. Your argument for evolution and against intelligent design/creationism seems pretty simple:

A) all creationists are stupidB) all non-creationists are smart

Therefore, there is no reason to engage the issue or even bother to make a case for your point of view.

It's the classic political argument! We have found the root of the debate and it is politics. On each side of political issues there is inevitably a calling into question of the opposite side's intelligence, while there is a bolstering of the intelligence of the same side. The Bush is dumb line is now classic, but people on the opposite side said the same thing about presidents through the latter half of last century. Other than stupid

Who cares what creationists think? It's not a problem outside the USA, and even there it's not really a problem - just something smart people find funny about the way stupid people think.

If you ridicule everyone who disagrees with a theory you subscribe to, I must conclude that there is more than disagreement about facts at stake from your side. Since you are reacting emotionally and quite childishly to people who attack your theory, I must wonder if you aren't too attached to it to think objectively ab

Why would science care if people are hating and killing over religion? And there are dozens of examples where different science disciplines have taught people to not think, examine evidence or question authority--the Eugenics movement comes to mind. Each professor/researcher who wants to keep his funding/tenure/reputation has his own agenda in mind, and the scientific community often falls into camps when the evidence is not clear--as is true with abiogenesis.

>Is it possible for scientists to publish their findings WITHOUT stooping to the level of mockery?

Scientists don't publish their work in Discover. It is a news magazine with a science focus and a somewhat sensationalist editorial style. Don't confuse the hyperbole of journalists with the scientists writings. The scientists working on these things tend to publish in obscure journals like Virus Research. For more information on these things including some cool photos (these things are larger than so

How is it that not wanting to believe in a creator is being narrow minded, while believing in one and not wanting to delve deeper is considered "open minded." I feel like your argument is just another intelligent designists last-ditch efford to stick "God" into an otherwise godless universe.

"The cover story for this month's Discover magazine tells of a recently discovered gigantic virus, Mimivirus, that has blurred the lines between viruses and bacteria, and spurred speculation that viruses could be the reason life evolved past single-celled organisms." From the article: "This is striking news, especially at a moment when the basic facts of origins and evolution seem to have fallen under a shroud. In the discussions of intelligent design, one hears a yearning for an old-fashioned creation story, in which some singular, inchoate entity stepped in to give rise to complex life-forms--humans in particular. "

Talk about a flamebait article. The two concepts are not mutually exclusive, and there is absolutely no reason to mention the latter except to stir up controversy and hatred. And with an article title like "Unintelligent Design", it's a safe bet this is what the writer was after. Good jorb, Mr. Charles Siebert of Discover.com.

Yeah, it's too bad the focus of the submitter was on the Intelligent Design snippet --- probably the least interesting bit in the article. The most fascinating stuff to a non-specialist like me was the complexity in the genetic code. Much more complex, I gather, than other members of the virus family so far discovered, and in fact sharing some genetic coding with "higher" animals? Wow --- that kind of thing really illusrates what makes science so fascinating.

What discussion? The whole topic of creationism/intelligent design is only being discussed in the US. The problem is that we have too many unteachable people in the US who take every nonsense for granted as soon as it gets the religious smoke screen. And the media in the US love this topic because it allows them to spread their pitiful program 24*7. Not only scientists, but also almost the entire world have put this "discussion" to rest. If you find it mentioned in European media, then only with reference to the difficulties in the US. This is not a discussion. It is comedy.

It's only really being discussed in United States media. It's not even a real issue in schools (although it kind of sounds like it is, there's no actual ID classes being taught outside of private parochial schools despite various proposals). It's not like US scientists are suddenly debating Intelligent Design as a serious topic.

The "debate" is really just a method to sell newspapers and attract news show audiences. It will last until another very loud, vocal fringe group is found, especially if that fri

"One gets the impression from certain religious believers that they fondly hope for the durability of certain gaps in our scientific knowledge of evolution, so that they can fill them with God. This is the exact opposite of what human intelligence is all about."

The viruses need the single celled organisms to replicate... but the single celled organisms couldn't realy evolve into proper single celled organisms until the viruses came along to do it...

Did you RTFA? The scientists suggest that a virus similar to Mimi is descended from a cell, or that ancient cells looked somewhat like Mimi. They're not saying that Mimi is the Mother Cell, or that cells only existed once virii were around. They're saying that something like Mimi may have been one of the earliest ce

No, they are saying that Mimi devolved to lose the ability to reproduce on its own, but just not very much. Therefore, all viruses must have devolved from earlier reproducing cells. Therefore these hypothetical pre-virus cells must be simpler than bacteria. Therefore, they must have been before bacteria, since simpler life means earlier in time.

Now may I count the assumptions:

The Mimivirus has devolved from a cell instead of evolved closer to a cell

Only your third point looks valid to me. The Mimivirus has genes in common to both viruses and other cells.

"Claverie found genes for such things as the translation of proteins, DNA repair enzymes, and other types of protein. Those functions were thought to be the exclusive province of more complex cellular organisms."

"certain signature Mimi genes, such as those that code for the production of the soccer-ball shape of its capsid (an outer protein coat common to all viruses), have been conserved in viruse

It's nice that there is a combination of cell enzymes and proteins in this virus, but is it because the Mimivirus devolved from an original cell, or evolved closer to a cell, due to some kind of copy error that grabbed some DNA from a host?

I don't doubt that viruses have evolved, but they very well may have evolved separately from other life, and finding one that is a hybrid raises more questions than it answers.

RTFA. Most (known) modern viruses need host cells to replicate. What if the ancient ones did it just fine? But they they got bored of it and started exerting pressure on other proto-life to do their replication for them. What if all of the rest of early life evolved under selective pressure of viruses to be good hosts for them? What if were all the viruses' evolutionary bitches? Just that, you know, things got out of hand and one day th

Virues may be involved in transferring genes from one species to another. In fact in many eco systems, it is found that plants, animals share common genes. It is unlikely some plants originated from animal or otherway round or they both originated from common microorganism either. It is more likely that the viruses (or virii as it is called biology) when infected different species, they transferred genes from one species to another. So not only all forms of life evolved from viruses, but current genetic evo

The central tenet of the story is that virus' posess and are part of an emergent "hive mind", that all evolution on Earth has occurred at the unconscious direction of virus' attempting to modify the environment enough for the virus' to achieve sufficient numbers and complexity to consciously express their hive mind - all while we poor, benighted humans insist on viewing ourselves as the pinnacle of the evolutionary mountain. The author writing lead me to belie

Most viruses are RNA coated with proteins the RNA generates from its environment. The earliest self-replicating molecule type we can document is RNA, though prions might turn up now that we know a little bit about them. Prions aren't as durable as RNA, so finding ancient evidence of them might be harder. But once we do, might we not start saying prions are the precursors of all life?

Instead of trolling, why not try to educate.The use of the term "prion" might not be absolutely correct since it was originally used to describe an infectious agent. However, the idea that a protein with two conformations - one as produced by a simpler biological process, and another which can alter a protein that's in the first conformation by putting it in the second conformation - might be fundamental to early biological systems, is a valid hypothesis.

viruses certainly play a roll in evolution: they are mercenary gene transfer mechanisms, even across species

as to the roll they played in the very beginning, it's my personal belief they were there from the start, swapping dna between proto-bacteria. i think self-replicating dna came first, then one day a miraculous/ fortuitous event happened: one of the self-replicating dna got swallowed by a little oil droplet, a bag, a micelle, and in this contained environment, was allowed to direct it's self-replication in a more controlled manner. this protobacteria's dna most definitely still had a life outside the oil droplets where it could still self-replicate. so therefore the first "virus" was still self-supporting. but then, parasitically, it devolved and co-evolved with the proto-bacteria to get a free ride: get its energy source for its replication from its new more stable proto-bacteria

this oil micelle adapation was only one miraculous/ fortuitous moment. the prokaryotes, bacteria, are very simple: loose dna floating around inside a capsule. the eukaryotes are highly regimented: they have organelles throughout the cell, one of which, the mitochondria, has its own genome

how did that happen?

it can only mean, one fortuitous day, billions of years ago, one cell swallowed another and instead of being digested, the swallowed cell made "food" (atp, other energetic molecules) for the master cell

and the rest is history. our genetic history. without that one fortuitous moment, whenever and wherever it happened so long ago, life as we know it would not be the same in the most radical of ways. perhaps the earth would still be just bacterial and algal mats. perhaps life would still evolve more complex, but in ways utterly alien to how they are now

so there is, in a way, many such "miraculous", if you believe in intelligent design, or "fortuitous", if you believe in undirected evolution, throughout our history as life

and in the end, it doesn't matter which way you view it: god-directed or random, as long as you agree it HAPPENED

the real problem with the intelligent design crowd is when they deny basic facts

evolution is replete with thousands of stories of free-living organisms who co-evolve with other organisms and then devolve (lose some of their functions such that they become entirely dependent on a host)

a virus is such a parasite

i said it was my personal belief, but: virus's are just batches of dna/ rna that need a host to replicate

at one time, that's all there was (free-floating self-replicating bits of dna/ rna).

They don't "devolve". This would somehow mean that the precursor was "better" to your judgement because more functions means "better" right?

They evolve. As they evolve, redundant functions are selected against, and the organism becomes more specialized at what it does. This is a more sophisticated organism, even if it does less. Remember that your judgement is always going to be biased - it's human nature.

It makes sense. A self-replicating nucleic acid form must have access to proteins and aminoacids to multiply... in the beginnings of life, these materials were readily available on the surface of the oceans (primordial soup)... when the first self-replicating acids evolved into unicellular beings (having the ability to CREATE a membrane), others evolved along with them (having the ability to PASS through said membrane).

Survival of the fittest. Those "protovirii" (term is an invention of mine) which couldn't adapt to the new environment of isolated (membraned) aminoacids, simply disappeared, or, to be more precise, were consumed by the other protovirii. It seems logical that the nucleic sequences with more "useful features" later merged with other useful sequences, obtaining things like the mimivirus discovered recently.

And THAT explains a mystery which i have thought about for so long... the existence of parasites and symbiotes. If an organism evolved, how could another organism evolve to take advantage of the first? The answer is that they evolved from the beginning, it's always been like that. Virii as the beginning of life solves this riddle with elegance.

The Matrix is definitely one of the most profound movies of all time. The dialog by Agent Smith has these words:

I'd like to share a revelation that I've had during my time here. It came to me when I tried to classify your species. I realized that you're not actually mammals. Every mammal on this planet instinctively develops a natural equilibrium with the surrounding environment, but you humans do not. You move to an area, and you multiply, and multiply, until every natural resource is consumed. The only way you can survive is to spread to another area. There is another organism on this planet that follows the same pattern. A virus. Human beings are a disease, a cancer of this planet, you are a plague, and we are the cure.

This may as well just be it - the actual truth.

The discovery of Mimivirus lends weight to one of the more compelling theories discussed at Les Treilles. Back when the three domains of life were emerging, a large DNA virus very much like Mimi may have made its way inside a bacterium or an archaean and, rather than killing it, harmlessly persisted there. The eukaryotic cell nucleus and large, complex DNA viruses like Mimi share a compelling number of biological traits. They both replicate in the cell cytoplasm, and on doing so, each uses the same machinery within the cytoplasm to form a new membrane around itself. They both have certain enzymes for capping messenger RNA, and they both have linear chromosomes rather than the circular ones typically found in a bacterium.

"If this is true," Forterre has said of the viral-nucleus hypothesis, "then we are all basically descended from viruses."

There is evidence of evolution everywhere. We cannot deny such a thing. There is a reason why the red squirrel population in Europe is declining, one named "Natural Selection." There is another type of squirrel that breeds faster, is sturdier and more adaptable, and remembers where it stores its stuff better. The growth of the gray squirrel population squeezes out the population of the red. It is natural selection at its finest.

Now, no one can prove or disprove that there could be an intelligence that

I am partial towards the red squirrels. I grew up in Russia and through all my childhood, in all the cartoons and childrens' books, the squirrel was a red squirrel. So for me that is how a scquirrel is supposed to look. After I came to US, I only saw the gray squirrels, and they just looked "wrong" to me.

But, on a serious note, would it still be evolution if humans would interfere and introduce new species? Would that still be "nature doing its thing" because we are a part of nature or would that be some s

Oh.. if only there were answers to your questions then maybe it'd be easier to sleep at night... they sound a bit nihilistic.I'm vegetarian since I think that, being a human, it's possible to try and cause less harm to other animals without causing harm to ourselves.. yet occasionally I find myself questioning it on "Well we evolved to be like this so why shouldn't we?". It's a bit like the taking animals into zoos to breed them up and release them back into the wild. Is there any point releasing seemingly

Mutations are not always destructive (whatever that means anyway). Mutations are just.. well... mutations. They can increase or decrease chance of reproduction, or not affect it, and naturally, the ones that increase the chance for reproduction are more likely to be passed onto decendents of the squirrel.

If mutations are always destructive, how come there are people with different colours of hair and skin?

Mimi's outsize complement of genes--so large that the virus is tantalizingly close to being an independent organism--suggest to many scientists that Mimivirus underwent reductive evolution early on and shed some of its genome, including the genes necessary to replicate on its own.

In other words, Mimi suggests the possibility that virii are descended from cells.

Yet, what comes before it? "more complex than mimivirus" means a darn complex organism.I really don't get the obsession (in discussions of the origin of life) with the concept that life must be DNA or RNA based, and that when it is no longer, it isn't life. If evolution has shown us anything, it is that *nothing* stays the same for long. Everything builds up on the scaffolding of something simpler, something that had a different purpose or even no purpose.

I've actually wondered about this many times before (my knowlege of viruses was, and still is pretty weak [IANAB], but it doesn't stop me from pondering such things).

Viruses (generally?) need other organisms to allow them to reproduce. Is it possible that viruses are not just a contiguous family as such, but splintered sub-families; fragmented siblings of the organisms they invade? I can imagine a cell breaking down after death, and a mut

if virus writers are 'kindof gods', then we should uninstall antivirus software from everywhere, perhaps the viruses really let windows machines evolve and we'll have soon gentoo all over the place:)actually this is what i have been wondering for a while, if we create a simple program which can rewrite itself, and we let a 'virus' attack it, and modify it randomly, will we end up with anything reasonable after enough modifications ? rationality says no, but the theory of possibilites says hell yeah !

I was in "biochemist" mode and actually read PS3 as p53 but wait, you might have a point there, hehehe... the p53 is a tumor suppressor gene and when it mutates, bad things happen (ie cancer). Maybe Sony is trying to tell us something about their "rootkit".

I find your lack of faith in the Flying Spaghetti Monster disturbing. The ID people are merely being tolerated for now, but when He wishes to turn them into Sauce with His Noodly Appendage, He will do so. This is all part of His Plan.

They've got DNA... but they aren't "alive". Isn't it a no-brainer that they came before cells?

No.

Current viruses cannot replicate without an nuturing environnement, i.e. outside a cell. Therefor, the theory was that cells were there before viruses and that viruses evolved from RNA/DNA fragments.

The article mentionned the idea that viruses might have evolved from something a little bit more complex but distinct, that was able to replicate outside a cell and became simpler after cells emerged.Another idea the

What came first? The computer virus, or the computer. Early computers were not computer viruses. Viruses exploit features pre-existent in computers to reproduce. For example a virus is unlikely to contain a TCP/IP stack but might exploit one on its host to spread. Similarly, nobody expects early organisms to look like viruses (except now, maybe they do).

This is really an extension to the Endosymbiotic theory. Where the existence of mitochondria and other organelles are really vestiges of prokaryotic parasites that became symbiotic and that the parasite's repoduction cycle became aligned with the repoduction of the host cell, and the two became one.

Carried to the extreme this theory indicates that all cellular and multi-cellular life are really just parasites that finally got along.